Work began on these strategic initiatives in 2012, but the vision for our school has remained steadfast since its founding by the Alford family in 1957.

One of the most important priorities for our Board of Trustees is to assess our progress regularly and provide an inspiring design for our evolution. Mapping this strategic Vision involved countless hours of work from our remarkably passionate community. We surveyed our constituencies, visited other schools and programs, read copiously and always kept the Principles of Good Practice from the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and the Accreditation Standards of the New Jersey Association of Independent Schools (NJAIS) in mind. We learned many things to help guide our work. This document intentionally refers to strategic initiatives, rather than strategic plans. Plans are static in nature and this document is intended to be dynamic so that we can adjust our goals as we need to in a rapidly changing world.

First and foremost, the Mission and Core Values of our school are the foundation of our school and it was important that receive feedback from our constituent survey on how people feel about these pillars of SRDS. There was a resounding affirmation of those statements as a reflection of who we are and what we value.

There are other areas of school life that we will be attending to based not only on the information obtained from the survey, but also from avenues mentioned above. We will be moving to a stronger focus on academics and implementing a range of strategies that are capable of raising the academic achievements of all our students. We will continue to provide steps to assure that our curriculum is not only robust for a college prep school, but also that we can attract and retain the best possible faculty to deliver that curriculum. We also hope to find more ways to celebrate and share with the larger community the academic achievements of our school and its students.

Please dedicate some time to reading through this plan. Our Board and school leaders have injected the insights and wisdom of our most valuable advisors: you, into this vision. We hope this vision reminds you of the reasons you chose SRDS for your child(ren), and why their future—and ours—holds remarkable inspiration for us all.